Blog Archives
Creating an API – First Steps
Over our lifetime, we’ve gotten a handful of requests for an API. In every case, our answer was, “We really want to do this, but just don’t have the time right now.” Well, we’re tired of that answer, and have decided to make some time. We’re super-excited about the idea of third-party developers making cool integrations with Obsidian Portal, and we can’t wait to see what cool stuff you all come up with.
Getting Started
Obsidian Portal is a fairly complex system now, with lots of heterogeneous data. Users, campaigns, wiki pages, adventure log posts, characters, items, maps, images, and surely some other stuff I’m forgetting. It would take forever to build API hooks for all of that data, so we’re going to take some baby steps first. The first phase will (probably) be read-only that exposes a fraction of our data for consumption by third party apps. This is where we need your help: What do you want?
There’s no point in us making an API unless some of you are writing apps to consume our data. We’ve got a few people we’re already talking to, but we want to include as much feedback as possible. If you’re interested, please let us know what you’re thinking.
Basically, I need answers to the following questions:
- What are you planning to do?
- What data do you need from Obsidian Portal?
If you have ideas, come to the forum and discuss it in the API thread.
Keep it serious
Before anyone starts throwing out ideas and requests, I’d like to make it clear that we plan to focus on actual developers and actual applications. I don’t want to get dragged into theoretical “It’d be cool if…” brainstorming. There are a lot of possibilities here, and I want the initial push to be in the direction of something concrete, even if it’s not earth-shattering.
Timeline
Our motto is “Under promise, Over deliver” and I intend to hold to that here. I’m not going to give a definitive timeline, and instead say that hopefully we will have something stable by the end of 2010, or early 2011.
Free System Friday: BattleTech RPG Quick-Start Rules
Boots on the ground, soldier! The universe is a-flame with war and you need to do your part. Welcome to BattleTech.
It is a universe at war. Even as mankind reached out to command the stars, the human lust for conflict and conquest could not be overcome as easily as the distances of light years. Driven by the dream of one day ruling all of humanity, mighty empires formed, fell, and rose again. From the chaos of war arose the Star League, the pinnacle of human civilization, a Golden Age where a lasting peace and time of prosperity seemed possible at last. But greed, ambition, and treachery combined to tear it all down once more, plunging all of the worlds humans called home into centuries of simmering conflict.
Yes BattleTech, the old-standby. Well for this Free System Friday, we’re hooking you up with the BattleTech RPG Quick-Start Rules! It’s got everything you need (short of players and dice) to suit up and take the war among the stars to your living room. Why, it’s even got purdy pictures!
So? What are you waiting for? Grab some friends, grab your dice, grab the rules, and fight the good fight!
New System Thursday: Star Wars Roleplaying Game
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The game, based on WEG’s earlier Ghostbusters RPG, established much of the groundwork of what later became the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and their sourcebooks are still frequently cited by Star Wars fans as reference material. Lucasfilm considered their sourcebooks so authoritative that when Timothy Zahn was hired to write what became the Thrawn trilogy, he was sent a box of West End Games Star Wars books and directed to base his novel on the background material presented within.
By the end of the game’s run around 140 sourcebook and adventure supplements were published for the game during its run through three editions.
In addition fifteen issues of a magazine series, the Star Wars Adventure Journal, were published between 1994 and 1998. The Adventure Journal was published in novel format of around 280 pages, and consisted of adventures and articles for the game, plus short stories intended to provide inspiration for gamemasters and news relating to Star Wars.
WEG’s license to produce Star Wars material was lost after the company declared bankruptcy in 1998, and the license was later picked up by Wizards of the Coast, who held the license until 2010.
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Thoughts on the new DDI Character Builder
Since everyone else is pontificating about the new web-only character builder, I thought I’d jump in and give my totally unqualified opinion. I don’t even have a DDI subscription, mainly because I’m on a Mac. But, I do know a little about running a tabletop gaming web application, so I’ll weigh in from that perspective.
November’s Featured Campaign: Cthulhu Supremus Est
If there’s one thing scarier than roving bands of sugar addled children clawing at your door for candy at all hours of the night, it’s when the elder gods come a-calling. This month’s featured campaign is Cthulhu Supremus Est by DM FrankSirmarco!
Q-Workshop contest winners!
Last week, we asked the question: What was your most important dice roll? And you answered! Boy did you answer. Well we had our entrants, and all we needed now was to pick the winners. And pick we did! Lets see what we got here.
Fifth Place: Joshua M.
Congrats Joshua! We felt that you nailed it on the head when you called out that there was something magical about that very first dice roll. I remember mine well!
Joshua, for your effort, you’ll receive a set of promotional dice from Q-Workshop!
